Long story with a stupid question

I’ll start off by saying, I did a lot of regrettable things over a decade ago. Stuff that I’m not proud of.

But back in 2015(ish) I worked as a dominatrix. (Please don’t judge me.) One of the avenues I would advertise my services was on Backpage. It cost money to get your posts put up, and the first couple times it was no big deal, no complications getting advertising.

Then one day (again, still in 2015ish) I went to post on Backpage, and they were changing their policies to protect people like me posting the services I offered. They no longer wanted a credit/debit card to pay for posting, since it could be traced back to us, but were switching to cryptocurrency, specifically Bitcoin.

I should mention 2015 was a huge blur of going out to do “gigs” and then afterwords getting drunk, pretty regularly. So my memory of specific details at that time is really terrible. I was blotting out a lot of terrible memories and regret with lots of alcohol.

I can’t remember if I went through the motions and actually purchased the bitcoins with the intention of making another post, but I do remember looking into bitcoin, maybe purchasing some, but not following through with posting on Backpage again after the change in policy.

So now it’s 2026. I’m a wife and a mom and living a normal, suburban mediocre life. No complaints here! But I can’t help but wonder about the possibly purchased, possibly lost/locked up bitcoin. Is there anything I can do to help track it down if it exists? I know this is a long shot, but we could really use the money now, and it would be such a huge relief to realize I’ve had this windfall of money all along, just sitting around.

Here’s what I do remember:

If the bitcoins were tied to any type of email account, there’s a good chance it’s long gone. The email I had since 12yo was hacked around that time and I lost all access to it. Also, I used a lot of burner email accounts for making those postings and communicating with the people hiring me for such “gigs.” These email accounts are long gone and deleted as well.

My memory is very fuzzy, but I seem to remember Backpage wanted like 5 or 10 bitcoin paid for posting. When I looked into it, bitcoin were more than 1:1 usd. I seem to remember 1 bitcoin=$20usd. I honestly can’t remember if I forked over the money after seeing the exchange rate. But in the off chance I did, I’d like to try and track the bitcoins down.

I know next to NOTHING about cryptocurrency. This would have been the one time I ever purchased any, if I did. I do not remember anything about a wallet, or a seed phrase, and cannot recall if I used any app to make the purchase. I feel like if I did, it would be Coinbase, but I’m not sure honestly.

So, how fucked am I at ever finding any answers or clues? How do I even begin to search for the (possibly purchased) lost bitcoin?

If you’ve read this far, thank you so much for hanging in there. I’m just trying to chase this fuzzy memory with a glimmer of hope.